Man when I heard Ogilvy, yeah, that Ogilvy, had an all new online video offering they were dealing out to their clients, I said "Self, we need to talk with them and find out what that's all about!" The other half of me, whose task it is to answer such statements, agreed, and so I got down to emailing people. Ultimately, I ended up with a chance to speak with Robert Davis, Interactive Marketing Director and Director of Advanced Video Practice over at Ogilvy New York.

When I watch Mad Men, I often imagine that's really what things were like in the early days at Ogilvy, which was founded around 60 years ago. Their client list reads like who's who in Fortune 500 - American Express, BAT, BP, Cisco, Coke, DuPont, Ford, Gillette, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, Kraft, Lenovo, Mattel, Motorola, Nestlé, SAP, Unilever, and Yahoo!. They're the company that I hope one day to have representing one of my companies, because it means I've truly arrived in the business world.

When Rob and I spoke, I found out that the admiration was mutual as he too had been keeping track of ReelSEO for several years (WOO!).

What kind of video was being offered to Ogilvy clients before AVP?

There was some online video prior to this but there wasn't a team of specialists focused on it. 3.5 years ago Rob joined and they knew it was where the things were going so it was all hush hush top secret (sort of).

What does the Advanced Video Practice Team Offer?

Over at Ogilvy, Rob and the team believe that video strategies and technology are still different enough to require a specialized team that knows those factors well and can help guide the clients through the labyrinthine ways of online video for marketing and advertising. The dedicated team is aimed at getting any of the company's clients up with strategic online video campaigns, SEO and distribution. Most creative is produced over in another group and that is exactly how Rob thought it should be. They didn't want to strip away duties from the other departments and teams but wanted to be more like an internal resource to call upon to help clients get the most out of online video campaigns.

Essentially, they offer pre-production planning assistance and post-production distribution, campaign strategies and management along with things like SEO. Now you see why ReelSEO might be popular over there with them.

So they seem to be sort of like floaters who can meet with clients and talk to them about the options available as well as talk with other internal teams to get them up to speed on what they might be able to offer to the clients and when to call in the AVP crew.

Two Views Merge in one Person

Robert Davis came from the media side of things so he has a unique perspective as he has been on both the creative and the business sides of the coin. That combined experience definitely gives him an interesting breadth of knowledge.

Within all that came the belief that video is not just about massive, viral distribution, but more about a balanced approach that includes proper analysis as well as professionally made content that speaks to the consumers and pushes the message across clearly.

Two Places, One Campaign

Rob told me that while using YouTube has a long list of advantages including massive potential audiences and such, there's also a rise of the .com or the brand specific online presence. He believes that a balanced approach is a better solution and that the .com is misused and should be ever-present in online video campaigns. Why? It's the only place where the brand has 100% control over the content, the message and how the brand is represented. When placing ads or online videos on video sharing sites there is no way to control the content around your own message. So it could become muddled or interfered with. Rob believes that the company or brand homepage is just about the most controlled environment you can have online and that's where you should be driving your traffic to.

But that also means that you need to leverage the massive amount of pre-existing, professional tools. No home-built 'basement coded' video players here folks. We are talking about end-to-end interactive solutions that leverage the power of existing, proven technology to increase the effectiveness of the campaigns and beat the clients' expectations while also moving everything forward.

With that in mind, they promote content strategies that are more informational, engaging, SEO-based, with easy interaction to get people into that ever-important sales funnel and increasing things like intent-to-purchase and actual purchase actions.

In a sentence Rob believes: Utilize YouTube and video sharing sites like that, but don't neglect your core online presence, your own .com which needs a revitalization of sorts.

Since we've reached a pretty decent length, I will cut this in two pieces and in the next piece we'll talk about what kind of content is being used and preferred and how the aim and directions have been changing.

Christophor Rick is a freelance writer specializing in technology, new media, video games, IPTV, online video advertising and consumer electronics. His past work has included press releases, copywriting, travel writing and journalism.

Damian Hoskin

Hosted v Posted indeed Ronnie Bincer. I like the approach Olgilvy is taking by dedicating teams to meet best practice. Thank you for such an inspiring article Christophor Rick.

http://vmgcinematic.com/ Mark Campbell

Great article Christopher.

Our company has been practicing end-to-end video creation & marketing for the past four years for many global agencies and brands. As many of us know, video marketing is usually a small piece of a larger campaign. By streamlining the process from end-to-end it makes it much easier for clients to manage online video content.

By providing creative services straight through to video promotions it makes video content a much more attractive marketing spend.

Cheers, Mark

http://www.videoleadsonline.com VideoLeadsOnline

Sounds like we are back to the hosted vs. posted debate... and perhaps the same conclusion that you'll have more control if you HOST, but get more interest if you POST (to YouTube).

Maybe we still can say "do both if you can afford it".

I'd say that if you already have traffic on your site, then Hosting can work, many, many folks need to get more traffic to their site and that is where the Post to YouTube and add a link back to your site is helpful... I'm still miffed that Google Analytics stopped letting you see Which YouTube Link (aka video) is bringing in the traffic (Referral) to your site now.